president's address. 715 



He spent, moreover, a large sum of money in the purchase of 

 books for the Society's library, and, when these were un- 

 fortunately destroyed by fire on the burning down in 1882 

 of the Garden Palace, in which the Society was then lodged, he 

 immediately set to work anew to form the fine collection of 

 scientific works constituting the greater part of our library as it 

 now stands. 



By Sir William Macleay's generosity several workers in various 

 branches of science have been enabled to carry on their researches 

 here or in the former home of the Society in Phillip-street, without 

 requiring to expend their time and energy on bread-winning work. 

 Dr. R. von Lendenfeld was for two years working in this way under 

 the auspices of the Society, and the results of his work have seen 

 the light in a large number of papers treating chiefly of the Sponges 

 and Hydrozoa published in our Proceedings. Succeeding Dr. von 

 Lendenfeld, Dr. Oscar Katz for several years worked in the 

 Linnean laboratory, the outcome of his researches being a series 

 of contributions to Bacteriology which have been published in the 

 Proceedings. Mr. Skuse has also been engaged under Sir William 

 Macleay's auspices in entomological work, and has thus been enabled 

 to make a very good beginning towards filling in a previously blank 

 space in our knowledge of the Australian fauna by means of his 

 numerous descriptions of Dipterous Insects of various families. 



And, finally, I must not omit to mention that by his appoint- 

 ment by Sir William Macleay to the post of Director and Librarian 

 of this Society, Mr. J. J. Fletcher has secured sufficient leisure in the 

 intervals when his numerous secretarial and editorial duties have 

 been less pressing, to carry on zoological work, the results of 

 which are before us in his valuable papers on the Australian 

 Earthworms, the Batrachia, and other subjects. 



Not only did Sir William Macleay present this Society with 

 this commodious building, and the greater part of its library, he 

 also paid all salaries, defrayed the expense of the greater number 

 of the plates, and gave it most generous and much-needed 

 assistance in many other ways. So that it might be able to 





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